Souness believes Liverpool should have sold Coutinho to Barcelona

Liverpool legend Graeme Souness believes that Liverpool should have sold Barcelona target Philippe Coutinho this summer.

Coutinho was the center of a very long transfer saga this summer, which involved Barcelona negotiating long and hard with Liverpool for the Brazilian but in the end, the Catalan giants failed to land the services of playmaker.

The Spanish side had made a bid as high as £114 million for Coutinho but despite the large nature of the offer, Liverpool rejected every approach for the player while maintaining throughout that he was not for sale.

In order to force a move to Barcelona, the 25-year-old had expressed his desire to leave Liverpool by submitting a formal transfer request and following the demand from the ex-Inter man, it looked increasingly likely that the transfer just might go through. Eventually though, Liverpool held onto their prized star.

While Liverpool keeping hold of Coutinho has been seen by many as a huge positive, club legend Graeme Souness has now gone on to question whether it was indeed a good idea by the Reds not to sell the player – especially considering that he openly voiced his desire to leave Anfield.

“Going forward, what sort of Coutinho is Jurgen Klopp going to have around the place?” Souness wrote in The Sunday Times.

“There will be some players in the dressing-room who are not terribly happy with him and everyone will be keeping a close eye on him. Will he still be the same committed Coutinho from past seasons? Only he can answer that. I would have accepted an offer in excess of £100m for him.”

Questions over Coutinho’s commitments will surely be asked should he fail to perform as expected in the upcoming games for Liverpool. It will now be interesting to see if the Reds might regret rejecting a very flattering offer for the Brazilian or whether he will be the difference between success and failure for the Merseyside outfit this season.

Liverpool fans will, nonetheless, be excited to finally see the flamboyant midfielder in action when Jurgen Klopp’s men square off against Manchester City after the international break as he was ruled out for the earlier weeks of the season due to a back injury.

Coutinho recently featured for Brazil in their World Cup qualifiers and scored the second goal in the Selecao’s recent 2-0 victory over Ecuador.